Most people think of Dexter types and CEO's when they think about sociopaths, but the vast majority of them aren't really going to go too far in life; sociopathy is legitimately a hindrance and effectively a disability for most people who express the condition.

It's often joked that how they relate to cars is one of the most consistent patterns of true antisocial personality disorder, because it is the perfect test of the pattern brashness, irritability, irresponsibility, poor executive functioning, and tendency to rationalize away or blame others for issues that they have legitimately created for themselves.

So they generally tend to speed, drive unsafely, drive while under the influence, get a lot of moving violations and parking tickets that they're really terrible at paying on time, are terrible at maintaining and upkeeing their vehicles, and frequently wreck them and/or lose their license, which they compound by continuing to drive on a suspended or revoked license.

Most people think of Dexter types and CEO's when they think about sociopaths, but the vast majority of them aren't really going to go too far in life; sociopathy is legitimately a hindrance and effectively a disability for most people who express the condition.

It's often joked that how they relate to cars is one of the most consistent patterns of true antisocial personality disorder, because it is the perfect test of the pattern brashness, irritability, irresponsibility, poor executive functioning, and tendency to rationalize away or blame others for issues that they have legitimately created for themselves.

So they generally tend to speed, drive unsafely, drive while under the influence, get a lot of moving violations and parking tickets that they're really terrible at paying on time, are terrible at maintaining and upkeeing their vehicles, and frequently wreck them and/or lose their license, which they compound by continuing to drive on a suspended or revoked license.

So a more correct statement (not saying how true it is) would be something like "Many CEO's, while not full blown sociopaths, exhibit one or more sociopathic tendencies." ?_________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

Maybe, but that's almost too vague to be useful. All of mental health is a spectrum, you just don't get diagnosed until it rises to the level of affecting normal functioning (hence "disorder" - your life is not "in order"). You undoubtedly have some traits related to a mental illness, because everyone does. I have some neurotic and anxious tendencies, and some compulsive tendencies (all symptoms of anxiety disorders). But it would be misleading to say that I have an anxiety disorder, because I don't. I function normally. I would say it's just as misleading to then say that I have the tendencies of an anxiety disorder because that's just an around-the-back way of labeling someone disordered.

You can say some CEOs are dicks, and that I'm sometimes anxious, though.

Sam wrote:

Most people think of Dexter types and CEO's when they think about sociopaths, but the vast majority of them aren't really going to go too far in life; sociopathy is legitimately a hindrance and effectively a disability for most people who express the condition.

This is probably mostly true, although we also have to consider that ASPD includes a variety of subtypes related to the different diagnostic criteria and that not everyone who meets the threshold for ASPD exhibits all of them. Some are simply more shallow, superficially charming, narcissistic, and manipulative than necessarily reckless or impulsive.* Certainly those that exhibit the more sadistic and histrionic features, though. Violent behavior (related, obviously, to impulsivity, a lack of fear of punishment, etc.) among people with ASPD (ignoring the sociopathy/psychopathy issue) tends to drop off by the age of ~40... because by then they're generally either in jail or have been killed (which fits the bill for "not going too far in life").

* Some ridiculously high percentage of people with one personality disorder also meet the criteria for another, which is one of the major problems with Axis II diagnoses. You end up piling labels on due to overlapping criteria, which does little to help the individual and can be detrimental to their treatment either by clinicians or the criminal justice system. It's not like having cancer and pneumonia, where you treat each separately or at least concurrently. They just have a single set of behaviors and end up with a grab bag of diagnoses that make them look like they're crazier than they might really be._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. Iíll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

Now I have great respect for samsally, but I think even she has given up on this thread, so perhaps the respectful and productive thing to do is to be more active in your community and meet people who actually have a small amount of influence in gender issues.

Or you could just keep reiterate talking points we've seen thousands of times before about being fascinated by sociopaths if that's your thing.

* Some ridiculously high percentage of people with one personality disorder also meet the criteria for another, which is one of the major problems with Axis II diagnoses. You end up piling labels on due to overlapping criteria, which does little to help the individual and can be detrimental to their treatment either by clinicians or the criminal justice system. It's not like having cancer and pneumonia, where you treat each separately or at least concurrently. They just have a single set of behaviors and end up with a grab bag of diagnoses that make them look like they're crazier than they might really be.

I have to ask, what's your take on the DSM revisions and personality disorders? You think it's going to cut down on diagnostic overlap, especially in the schizotypal realm?

I don't "give up" on the feminism thread so much as peace out when it starts getting into subjects I know almost nothing about, I'm not very interested in, or are just a rehashing conversations that have already happened.

Considering the thing is a hundred thirty-some pages long at this point, I won't be too surprised if it swings back around to something I have stuff to say about again.

(Thanks for illuminating the car thing, Sam. I had no idea.)_________________Samsally the GrayAce

I have to ask, what's your take on the DSM revisions and personality disorders? You think it's going to cut down on diagnostic overlap, especially in the schizotypal realm?

I think it will definitely cut down on overlap, if for no other reason than there will only be 6 personality disorders (antisocial, schizotypal, obsessive-compulsive, boderline, avoidant, narcissistic, and personality disorder trait specified). Anyone who doesn't meet the diagnosis of one of the defined PDs will end up with PDTS and a list of features and severities. Whether that's useful, I don't know. I imagine it will make clinical research more difficult (because PDTS will include so many facets, and small percentages of the overall population will have each), but hopefully any research that does come out will be more useful ("response to treatment X among PDTS patients with magical thinking and avoidant features").

They do the same thing with personality, after all. Your Bachman-Turner, err Myers-Briggs personality inventory, or your MMPI, are just a list of traits without a label (well, some people identify with the label there, too (more!)). That's actually created a lot of useful research around the link between personality and behavior (as just one example)._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. Iíll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

Ennnnh, I think you have to register on their forum to do that._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. Iíll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

I, for one, identify strongly with the arbitrary list of personality traits that such tests inconsistently assign to me.

I feel that such labels describe me accurately as a person and I try to incorporate them into my projected persona as much as possible. I mean, I freakin' love labels, and I especially love labelling myself as things of which I vaguely fit the description, dontcha know._________________butts

Myers-Briggs is kind of a scam. I mean, it's interesting, but only something like 50% of people have the same result after a year. They even say in the manual that the thinking-feeling dichotomy isn't reliable, and that the whole thing's questionable with kids. Which makes getting attached to being an INTJ or whatever even sillier.

On the other hand, the Five Factor Model, as tested by the NEO-PI-R (NEO personality inventory, revised), has shown test-retest reliability stretching out over 6 years (that is, scores are about the same even when the second test is years after the first). But what you end up with is a number on each of 30 scales, which are relatively meaningless to most people, rather than a handy acronym that you can have printed on a t-shirt and devote yourself to._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. Iíll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman